Chapter 19

I stare at the birdfeeder, which is back on Palmer land again the next afternoon.

Eugene gave me the welcome news this morning that we’ve got a showing set up for tomorrow with a very motivated buyer, and I’m feeling good . Good enough to take things up a notch with this battle.

“Unbelievable,” I say, hands on my hips. This could go on indefinitely, and I don’t have indefinitely. I’m leaving in two days. I need a victory now. “Okay, Officer Palmer. I see how it is. Let’s test just how far you’re willing to go to win this war, shall we?”

Beau’s cart isn’t in his driveway, but his brother Tristan’s is. I wait until the driveway is empty. It’s my time to shine.

I extract the birdfeeder from its location in Palmerville and bring it back where it belongs. But this time, I don’t set it in the front yard or the side yard. I take it all the way to the back.

I stand in the yard for a few minutes, strategizing as an idea takes form in my mind. With it, my smile grows until it’s an all-out grin. The type of grin the Grinch would wear as he concocts an evil plan. But mine won’t end with “Dahoo Dores.”

I put the feeder in the grass as the sun kisses the horizon behind me. I feel like Kevin in Home Alone , setting elaborate traps, only my trap isn’t very elaborate, and my target definitely isn’t bumbling and inept like Harry and Marv. My target is Beau Palmer, most charming cop on the planet .

Well, this cop is about to get a taste of his own medicine.

Once the birdfeeder is in place, I hurry inside, change into dark shorts and a tank top, and rummage through Grams’s drawers until I find a flashlight and some rubber bands. They’re not ideal for the purpose, but they’re just a backup option if Beau doesn’t cooperate.

It’s dark outside by the time I’m fully prepared and lying in wait next to a tall potted plant on the deck with a perfect view of the feeder. I don’t know exactly when Beau will get home, but I know he was going to watch a game with Phoenix around seven, so I’m thinking nine thirty is a safe bet.

My stomach rumbles at ten o’clock. Where is he?

After a quick debate, I head inside to grab a snack. If Beau pulls in right now, I’ll still be able to see his headlights from the kitchen window. I, on the other hand, made sure to turn on the TV in my bedroom so that it looks like I’m up there watching something. Basically a criminal mastermind.

I grab a plain piece of bread and sneak back outside, taking my place. A few minutes later, the distinct sound of an engine approaching has me going still. I cock my ear to listen. It’s definitely him because I hear the jingling of Xena’s collar. My heart starts thumping against my chest in anticipation. What if he’s tired and goes straight to bed? What if he realizes how ugly that birdfeeder is and decides to let me win?

“Come on, Z!” he calls.

“Xena starts with an X ,” I whisper to myself.

His front door opens, then shuts shortly after. I assume he’ll get Xena food and water and maybe change out of his uniform. Sure enough, the upstairs light goes on a couple minutes later. It’s got a sheer curtain, and when I steal a glance, I get a half view of Beau unbuttoning and pulling off his uniform shirt.

I hurry to look away, but even that quick view has my heart thumping.

“Focus, Gemma,” I say. “Eye on the prize. ”

Beau is not the prize , I remind my brain.

It’s another fifteen minutes before I hear the soft click of the door closing—like someone’s trying to be sneaky about it.

“Game time,” I whisper with a huge smile.

I’ve never stayed as still in my life as I do now. Not even when Mia tried to extract an eyelash from my eye with a pair of tweezers when we were kids.

The latch of the side gate creaks slightly as it opens, and my body zings like a live wire in anticipation. My eyes are already adjusted to the dark, but even if they weren’t, I could easily see Beau. He’s wearing a bright yellow shirt. Has he no respect for the methods criminals have spent millennia developing? It’s like he wants to be caught.

His eyes squint as he searches the yard. He smiles at the sight of the feeder, then heads toward it.

Not until this moment have I realized how loud my breathing is. My lungs sound like two air compressors, working to the background of my heartbeat, which is like the drum section of a marching band.

Beau’s hands wrap around the metal of the birdfeeder pole and start to tug.

I jump out of the bushes, shining my flashlight on him. “Freeze! Put your hands in the air!”

He shields his eyes with a hand.

“ Both hands where I can see them,” I yell. “And stop smiling like that. This is a citizen’s arrest.”

He puts his hands up, but I can see the makings of a Beau Palmer smile from a mile away. It’s never far off. Even when he’s being arrested.

“Now what?” he asks.

It’s a valid question, and to be honest, I hadn’t really thought through things much farther than the next step. I was so focused on catching him in the act that I didn’t consider all the other steps. I probably should’ve googled the citizen’s arrest process.

“Now I handcuff you,” I say.

His brow cocks. “This is heading an unexpected direction. Is this because I said I like your hair kinky?”

“Stop talking,” I say, going behind him. “You’re under arrest for trespassing and…armed robbery. Gimme your hands.”

“ Armed robbery?” he asks.

“You have arms, don’t you?” And very nice ones at that.

He chuckles. “I’m not packing heat, though.”

“Fine,” I say, reaching for the rubber bands in my back pocket. “Trespassing and garden-variety robbery, then.”

He glances over his shoulder, brows up. “You’re just going to take my word for it that I’m not armed? That’s irresponsible, GG.”

“Officer GG to you.” He’s not wrong, however. I stuff the rubber bands back in my pocket and come around to face him for the pat down. I’ve seen it done on TV a hundred times. Heck, I’ve even had it done to me at the airport, but right now, I can’t remember what patting down entails. Where exactly am I meant to pat? How thorough must I be?

He’s watching me, amusement glittering in his eyes. I’d sure like to give those cheeks a rough pat.

I put my hands up, and my eyes scan his torso for the best starting place.

“Cuffs first,” he prompts, enjoying every second of this. “Unless you feel I’m that much of a threat to you.” His eyes tease me, and I know we’re not talking about the birdfeeder anymore.

“Nope,” I say, walking around behind him again. “Definitely not a threat to me.”

He puts his hands behind him. “If you don’t see me as a threat, you have no grounds for a citizen’s arrest.”

“You were stealing from me, Officer .” I fiddle with the rubber bands. “You know, for a man entrusted with upholding the law, you sure don’t seem to think your crime is a big deal.”

“Correct,” he says. “Because I didn’t commit a crime.”

“Unbelievable. You’ve stolen the birdfeeder off my property multiple times now.”

“Whose property it’s on is a matter for debate.”

I scoff. “You came through our fence to get it. I think it’s pretty clear.”

“A fence that was put on our side of the line. As for the birdfeeder, you put it out with the trash, which means it was abandoned, which means I was within my rights to take it. Hence, you’ve been the one trespassi—” He stops, looking over his shoulder. “Are you using rubber bands as handcuffs?”

“I’m sorry I don’t own a pair of actual handcuffs, Beau. That’s not my thing.”

“I didn’t think you would. Grams, on the other hand…”

I pull his hands together tighter, and he winces but laughs.

“You know what you have to do next, right?” he asks.

“Of course I do.” I totally don’t. “I’m taking you down to the crawl space to await trial.”

“Ahhh,” he breaths out. “Vigilante justice.”

“Citizen’s arrest,” I correct, finishing off my makeshift knot for the cuffs.

“Then your next step is to call the police.”

“I don’t trust them.”

“Then this has just turned into unlawful detainment.”

Before I know what’s happening, Beau whips around to face me, grabs both my wrists, and pins them behind my back, holding me flush against him.

I look up at him, wide-eyed and breathless. How did he…?

“I can get out of real handcuffs with a pen cap, GG. Yours were a bit less foolproof. But more importantly…you’re under arrest for unlawful detainment, trespassing, and armed robbery. ”

“Armed?” I manage to eke out despite how difficult I find it to breathe this close to him.

“And dangerous,” he says. Gosh, he smells good.

“Yeah? How do you figure?”

His eyes search mine, still wrinkled at the sides with a smile. But there’s something else a little deeper and…intense. “Because I can’t stay away from you or stop imagining my arms around you.” His eyes drop to my lips, and my heart pounds like a battering ram.

“This doesn’t seem like a very by-the-book way to detain a woman.” I’m desperate to keep my thoughts in order, but my senses swim with Beau.

“I’m off-duty right now. This is a citizen’s arrest. And now that I’ve detained you, I’ll be calling the cops. Because that’s the correct way to do it.”

“By all means,” I say.

He reaches for his phone, and with every bit of strength I can muster, I break my wrists out of his clasp and run, a huge smile on my face. There’s nowhere to go but the dock, and I get there all too soon, with Beau not far behind.

I hesitate for a split second, kick off my sandals, then jump into the dark canal water. I kick to the surface as fast as I can, wipe my eyes, and start swimming, a task made all the harder by the laughter bubbling inside me. I probably sound like a maniac.

A big splash behind me tells me Beau’s not letting the water deter him. Of course he’s not. My laughter dies, and competition mode takes over. I swim with everything I’ve got, which is a lot. I was on swim team in high school.

But we swam in crystal-clear pools in well-lit buildings, not in pitch-black gulf waters after dark. Suddenly, all the scary stories we told as kids about gators and sharks are swarming my hopped-up-on-adrenaline brain. It’s enough to take the edge off my stroke.

Beau grabs my foot, slowing me down long enough to take hold of my wrist, and I’m not even mad. But I won’t let him know that.

“You’re quite the swimmer,” he says breathlessly as he pulls me to face him. Water is dripping in his eyes from his hair, which he’s pushed back.

“I know,” I say, every bit as out of breath. I kick to stay afloat, trying not to think what things might make contact with my feet in these inky waters. “You wouldn’t have caught me if I hadn’t slowed down.”

“Because you wanted to be caught.”

“ No . Because I started thinking about what other creatures might be swimming with me.” I instinctively glance at the water over my shoulder, like I might see a sea monster rising up there.

“What kind of creatures?”

“You want me to list them a—” Something tickles my thigh, and I shriek and grab Beau, latching on like a barnacle, legs wrapped around his waist.

“Whoa,” he says, laughing.

It was him. He tickled me. And now I’m wrapped around him like a spider monkey. “You little…” I unwrap my legs and push off of him, but he pulls me back.

For once, he looks down at me with no humor in his eyes. “Wait. Don’t go.”

I’m thrown off by the plea, treading water as I try to figure out how to reply. I know how to respond when Beau teases and provokes. I have no clue what to do when he asks me to stay and looks at me like he wants me to wrap my legs around him again.

“My feet can’t reach,” I say, treading water to prove my point. I don’t even know if I’m making an excuse to leave or opening the door for him to offer another option.

“I can.” He’s stable and unmoving in the water, like an anchor, his gaze fixed on me, inviting me to hold on to him again .

Maybe it’s my imagination running wild with visions of gators nearby, but I reach for him under the water, and his hand is there waiting. It wraps around mine and pulls me toward him gently, like he’s giving me the opportunity to resist.

I don’t. I can’t. I can’t even breathe properly, much less resist him. I’ve been pushing against Beau so hard since I got back to Sunset Harbor. I tell myself it’s because I hate him—I hate every Palmer—but as I look up at him with nothing but the sound of gentle lapping of water around us, I realize something: I’ve been pushing back because I’ve been drawn toward Beau. And now that I’ve stopped resisting that force, my momentum is taking me right to him.

I grasp his shoulder with my other hand and suck in a breath at the feel of his fingers wrapping around my waist.

“I meant what I said, Gemma,” he says. “I know you want me to stay away from you. But I don’t know how. And I don’t want to.”

I shut my eyes and lower my head, trying to breathe and make sense of everything. It shouldn’t feel this good to hear Beau say these things. But it does. Gosh, it does.

I shake my head, and Beau’s grip on my waist loosens ever so slightly. Without even thinking, I draw nearer him, wanting his firm grip back.

I bring my head up and meet his gaze, feeling more nervous than I have in my entire life. “I want to want you to stay away from me.”

His eyes grow more intent as they search mine, and the pressure of his fingers on my waist increases again. I let it draw me toward him, then lift my chin, waiting.